The Importance of Uprisings

Uprisings are, as we are all aware, the Flashpoints of 5.0. We don't know for sure how many we're going to get or exactly what we have to do for each of them, but we can certainly hope that they're far better than Star Fortresses used to be.

As the first proper four-man content since 3.0 with Blood Hunt and Battle of Rishi, the Uprisings have a lot to live up to.

I imagine that we'll see each one following the pattern establised as the Flashpoint pattern in Flashpoints such as Hammer Station, Czerka, and Depths of Manaan in being roughly 30 minutes in length with three bosses (although I sadly doubt that they'll all have bonus bosses). Fairly small, yet still making their mark.

I'm curious to see what the bosses themselves will be like. Given that there are rumoured to be at least five (with a further two or three names floating in the ether) there should be at least fifteen bosses across all of the Uprisings. I have my doubts that we'll see many new mechanics, but it will certainly be interesting to see which mechanics they have.

Heck, they could re-utilise every single Flashpoint mechanic we've seen thus far and with the correct spins I'm fairly sure most people would find the fights enjoyable.

It's worth looking at the prospect of what Uprisings will bring to the game because they are the first true group-content to come to the game since Battle of Rishi and Blood Hunt gained Hard Modes in 3.1. Colossal Monolith and the Star Fortresses technically count as well, but one of these is a simple instanced boss (which is like calling Xeno, Eyeless, or Golden Fury worthy group content) whilst the Star Fortress were primarily designed to be soloed and were never added to Group Finder.

Thus, the Uprisings could serve to gauge two very crucial factors.

First, they would allow people to see how healthy the group-content stage at endgame is for more varied things. Yes, they're basically just Flashpoints so even looking at the standard Group Finder queue could serve this purpose, but it would show how the community responds to new content. If the Group Finders never get off the ground for Uprisings, that's definitely not a good sign, for example.

Second, they are a very slight glimpse into what the future of group content in SWtOR may be like. I know, you can't truly judge Operations off Flashpoints, but what I mean to say is that if the Uprisings are full of nice mechanic-laden fights rather than just big numbers and RNG (Ma/stuck and Bastard, I'm looking at you both here) then there is a very good chance that future Operations fights may be, too. Granted, any new Operations fights would hopefully feature new mechanics, but baby-steps are very necessary when testing the waters, particularly where BioWare are concerned.

Analogies are both vague and helpful. It's like trying to waffle on more whilst having nothing else to say.

In conclusion, then, Uprisings are worth keeping an eye on.

I sincerely hope that they're going to be fun and memorable enough that they're actually worth doing time and again. The Star Fortresses are just so forgettable outside of the Exarch fight in Heroic (or should this now be termed 'Veteran'?) Mode, whilst virtually every single standard Flashpoint has something that keeps people remembering them fondly.